5 Introspective Books On Life, Love, And Finding Your Way That Every Old Soul Should Read
The first paragraph chapter, was slightly overwhelming with it's talk on the paradox of self-denial. There were a lot of words like self-renunciation, exaltation of consciousness, insight degenerating into another precept, etc. It's chock full of sentences that you have to read over and over, or you can skim and find yourself at the end of the chapter not with the ability to say "this is what the book said" but more, "this is how it made me feel". You follow?
Anyway, the second chapter, which is feeling like the actual introduction, was hands down, rock my world, soup for the soul, the warm hand that affirmed why I purchased the book in the middle of holiday shopping when I spent $800 more than I had intended to. Fuck.
So, here it is. Because it's beautiful and I wanted to share it with you.
Become What You Are
It has been said that the highest detachment, or, in the words of Chuang-tzu: "The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror; it grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep." Detachment means to have neither regrets for the past nor fears for the future; to let life take its course without attempting to interfere with its movement and change, neither trying to prolong the stay of things pleasant nor to hasten the departure of things unpleasant. To do this is to move in time with life, to e in perfect accord with its changing music, and this is Enlightenment. In short, it is to be detached from both past and future and to live in the eternal Now. For in truth neither past nor future have any existence apart from this Now; by themselves they are illusions. Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it persists for ever. This movement and change has been called Tao by the Chinese, yet in fact there is no movement, for the moment is the only reality and there is nothing beside it in relation to which it can be said to move. Thus it can be called at once the eternally moving and eternally resting.
How can we bring ourselves into accord with this Tao? A sage has said that if we try to accord with it, we shall get away from it. But he was not altogether right. For the curious thing is that you cannot get out of accord with it even if you want to; though your thoughts may run into the past or the future they cannot escape the present moment. However far back or forward the try to escape they can never be separated from the moment, for those thoughts are themselves of the moment; just as much as anything else they partake of, and, indeed, are the movement of life which is Tao. You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now - otherwise you would not be here. Hence the infinite Tao is something which you can neither escape by flight nor catch by pursuit; there is no coming toward it or going away from it; it is and you are it. So become what you are.
How can we bring ourselves into accord with this Tao? A sage has said that if we try to accord with it, we shall get away from it. But he was not altogether right. For the curious thing is that you cannot get out of accord with it even if you want to; though your thoughts may run into the past or the future they cannot escape the present moment. However far back or forward the try to escape they can never be separated from the moment, for those thoughts are themselves of the moment; just as much as anything else they partake of, and, indeed, are the movement of life which is Tao. You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now - otherwise you would not be here. Hence the infinite Tao is something which you can neither escape by flight nor catch by pursuit; there is no coming toward it or going away from it; it is and you are it. So become what you are.
